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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623347">direct to reality sequel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear'>Dandybear</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU Vision Raising The Twins, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Human Vision (Marvel), Jewish Maximoff Family (Marvel), Non-Binary Vision, Putting that tag in pre-emptively because oh boy, i take a hammer and i fix the canon, toxic relationship dynamics, unlearning abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:08:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mr. Maximoff. Your children are clearly very academically gifted, but they seem … troubled. Is everything alright at home?”</p><p>It’s a foolish line of questioning. Being so direct often results in a defensive answer. One hoping to deflect any probing. Of course everything’s fine, is the automatic response. The boys are bored, un-challenged in their current state. Perhaps they should be moved up a grade, or into gifted classes.</p><p>“They’ve recently been separated from their mother,” he sighs.</p><p>“Oh. I’m very sorry. Divorce or...?”</p><p>He feels his hackles raise and he squeezes his hands hard enough to whiten his knuckles, “A separation,” he repeats.</p><p>--</p><p>AU where Wanda manifests a human version of Vision into reality then disappears into the multiverse, leaving Vision to raise teenage versions of the twins. Follows the events of WandaVision (up until episode 7 at least).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau (mentioned), Wanda Maximoff/Vision</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>226</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>direct to reality sequel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello. This show has been living my head rent free as you can see.</p><p>I have a lot I want to unpack about Vision, and about Wanda, and in this case, it's easiest to show Wanda with her absence. I see a lot of folks criticizing her for doing the same thing (2-5) male characters have done to her every Avengers movie she's been in, so I wanted to address that. IT'S NOT OKAY AND IT'S NEVER OKAY.</p><p>Anyway, Vision and the boys living and everyone getting therapy is a best case scenario here. </p><p>(Yes, I know Vision's human name is "Victor Shade" but his brother is named Victor Mancha, and I think there's room for branching out creatively. I also wanted to nod to Bettany's role in The Da Vinci Code.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mr. Maximoff. Your children are clearly very academically gifted, but they seem … troubled. Is everything alright at home?”</p><p>It’s a foolish line of questioning. Being so direct often results in a defensive answer. One hoping to deflect any probing. <em> Of course everything’s fine </em>, is the automatic response. The boys are bored, un-challenged in their current state. Perhaps they should be moved up a grade, or into gifted classes.</p><p>Vision, however, just got out of a situation wherein dancing around the issue of ‘trouble at home’ led to a domino effect that landed him in this uncomfortable chair, observing his very human hands and looking at the woman across from him. She’s a pleasant woman with a tight bun and a Nigerian accent. Formally, she is headmaster Shehu, though she introduced herself as Oluwafunbi. (He quietly responded, <em> “Virgil.” </em></p><p>“For the Divine Comedy?” she asked.</p><p>He smiled a non-smile and nodded.)</p><p>“They’ve recently been separated from their mother,” he sighs.</p><p>“Oh. I’m very sorry. Divorce or...?”</p><p>He feels his hackles raise and he squeezes his hands hard enough to whiten his knuckles, “A separation,” he repeats.</p><p>His wedding ring is still on his finger. Still heavy, still hot, like Wanda’s weight on his chest. </p><p>They are still together. He feels that in the beating heart she gave him. But, they are apart. His wife ascended godhood, tearing heaven and Earth to give him and their boys a chance at a life. The look she shot him over her shoulder before disappearing between worlds haunts his unconscious. It makes his hands shake and his jaw clench.</p><p>He is so angry with her.</p><p>And so worried.</p><p>“That must be a lot for them.”</p><p>“She’s always been there,” he says, leaving the statement deliberately vague. Easily interpreted as a stay-at-home mother (true), overbearing (also true), and omniscient (the real truth of his meaning). The children are as Greek gods, creatures sprung formed from the body of their mother through conceptions not entirely immaculate, and not entirely divine. He participated, sure, but that was because Wanda chose for him to do. As all mothers do, he supposes. It feels very complex when looking at the forest for a singular tree, yet when he pulls his gaze backwards it seems so … mundane.</p><p>He’s a man. One much younger than he appears. And, he has two sons, also younger than they appear. They were built out of the same star stuff as everything else on Earth, but the architect was one with her own happiness in mind. Intelligent design. Wanda’s design. They were wanted. Built purposefully out of the cosmic chaos. </p><p>However, with the circumstances of their births--rebirths in his case, that leaves the three of them wholly unprepared for real life. Wanda was the one who had lived, human experience. The rudder to the whole sailboat. Now they’re stranded in doldrums with cut sails.</p><p>(Red eyes, bared teeth, freckles.)</p><p>“We have counsellors the boys can speak to. They’re child psychologists used to dealing with minors in crisis.”</p><p>“Do children usually go willingly to such things?” he asks.</p><p>Headmaster Shehu’s smile wanes. </p><p>Vision isn’t meaning to poke holes in the offers for help. He’s being genuine in his line of questioning.</p><p>(“Worst part about foster care is the shrinks,” Wanda said, always messier with her English grammar in the late hours. She fought with the window to get it open--Ukranian frost keeping it shut. Once hit by the sting of air, she sipped from her off-brand Dr. Pepper and made a face.</p><p>“They want you to be honest. <em> Tell me everything. Is everything okay at home? </em>Like they can help. All they can do is bring a belt down on you faster for talking. Of course nothing is right at home. It’s fucking foster care.”)</p><p>He’d never lay a hand on a child. It was in his programming not to, but he supposes he’s relying on his own self-conditioned behaviour now. Regardless, he doesn’t think fear of retaliation would keep the twins from talking. The complications of the situation and the secrecy of their identity on the other hand.</p><p>“They’re seeing someone outside of school,” he says, and it’s not a lie. Then he changes the subject, “I think extracurriculars might be challenging. Good ways to get them to socialize. They’ve had a very sheltered childhood.”</p><p>Understatement.</p><p>“That’s an excellent idea, Mr. Maximoff. They started a bit late in the season, but I’m sure we can talk to the program organizers about making accommodations. I’ll give you some pamphlets.”</p><p>“Ah, yes, thank you. If there’s anything else I can do.”</p><p>“Well, William is for the most part charming and considerate. Thomas on the other hand is--”</p><p>“A handful,” Vision sighs, “We’re aware.”</p><p>He didn’t catch that one before it came out of his mouth. He is not a “we” because he lacks a she. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s the same role as in Wanda’s vision, he supposes. His hands are stuffed into his slacks as he waits for the bell. His details are different, as they so often were. Styles of the times. Taboo topics of discussion. What a man’s role in a household is.</p><p>Fun fact about that last one. Even when he had a brain wired for universal constraints and constants, the topic made his circuits start to heat up. A contested topic to be sure. One with as many sides as there are keyboards on the planet. </p><p>Now, he has to teach that without so much as a guide for himself.</p><p>Well, there is Bruce Banner. His father by default now, with the other two dead. There’s always been a prickle of unease between the two of them. The discomfort of his existence. The friction between spouse and father-in-law. Such an otherwise peaceful man had such venom for Wanda. </p><p>It shouldn’t be fraught. Reaching out to Doctor Banner to ask, <em> how does one become a man, exactly? </em>Or how many calories is appropriate for adolescent boys to consume, because he’s sure they’re exceeding it, but they just keep growing and shaping. Tommy’s hair has whitened like Pietro’s, but his face is all Vision’s. It sits in his chest, sometimes, to just observe that this child is himself in miniature.. Billy, on the other hand, has soft, freckled cheeks, and his mother’s dangerous smile.</p><p>(Red eyes, bared teeth, freckled cheeks.)</p><p>Billy finds him first, and shrinks further into his oversized tunic.</p><p>“Hey Dad,” he says.</p><p>Vision huffs a little sigh and smile, squeezing Billy’s shoulder. Billy freezes and shrugs him off.</p><p>Fear?</p><p>Not of Vision.</p><p>There’s a snicker of teenage teeth as a pack passes.</p><p>Ah, of ostracization.</p><p>The desire to be “cool”.</p><p>One that Tommy chases much more than his younger brother. He’s in a pack of athletic boys when he spots them, visibly deflating, before puffing himself up to be bigger, louder, more.</p><p>That much hasn’t changed.</p><p>“See you, guys!” he waves.</p><p>“You didn’t have to come in to school to pick us up,” he adds, shouldering past his father and twin.</p><p>“I did actually. The principal called me here. She’s concerned about your performance.”</p><p>Tommy scowls. </p><p>Vision leads them to the car that he is licensed to drive, and knows how to drive, despite never having been trained to do so.</p><p>(“Learned this when I was sixteen,” Wanda said, smirking at him from the driver’s seat and pressing the two wires together into a closed circuit.</p><p>The car sprang to life, illuminating the mischief of her eyes (green), and teeth (flashing white), and with it, the radio.</p><p>Wanda wrinkled her nose, turning down the Italian pop, “Where to, Vis?”</p><p>He gawked at her, “Wanda, this isn’t our car.”</p><p>“Yeah, and I’ll return it when I’m done. It’s not like a wanted global terrorist can order a taxi or walk into a dealer. So, where do you want to go?”</p><p>Actions like this always brought forth Tony’s warnings: Wanda’s dangerous. Wanda’s got a different moral code. Wanda needs to be monitored. Controlled.</p><p>The warnings became part of his programming. Tangled in the wires with all the love he felt for (red eyes, bared teeth, freckled cheeks) her. He wanted order, and she harnessed chaos.</p><p>“I,” he stammered, “I suppose I’ve never seen the sun rise over the Vatican in person?” at a loss.</p><p>“Vatican City it is. I wonder if I’ll burst into flames!” she laughed. Vision made eye contact with the Hamsa charm at her wrist. The star of David knocking into the ankh at her throat.)</p><p>Their house is a home, he supposes. It feels more manufactured than the reality they hail from. The walls are cold and white, devoid of any memories, because those two, were part of a false narrative. But even then: it was her. It was all her. The walls were Wanda, and the doors were Wanda, and these pieces of her were warm. She was their fortress. The safety from the world they all haunt now.</p><p>There’s a single photo. One of him and the boys eating ice cream, taken candidly by the young Mr. Parker. It’s artificially blown out by the sun, but they look… normal. Human. Like a father and his sons down by the Jersey pier. There’s a lack of negative space, so her absence doesn’t seem as huge as it does now. As it does in all parts of their lives.</p><p>“Homework, Tommy,” Vision says before his eldest can commandeer the entertainment center for the evening to play video games. </p><p>Tommy rolls his eyes and sighs. Billy takes the opportunity to race upstairs and lock himself in his room.</p><p>They always had a shared room when Wanda was in control. A projection of her own childhood, he supposes. She and Pietro were always within arms reach of each other.</p><p>(Until they weren’t.)</p><p>He read a book on how adolescents, especially boys, need their space. Privacy, even if there’s nothing to hide, is a great building block for trust into adulthood.</p><p>He just wonders if the space is good, or just part of a growing distance between the three of them.</p><p>“After school snack, lads?” he offers, using his cheerful voice.</p><p>Tommy zips around the kitchen grabbing junk food, then does his homework in record time, before moving to the sofa. Billy stays locked in his room. Vision ends up eating a banana and staring at the wall calendar. It’s an unnecessary anachronism at this point, but the paintings of bees are pretty.</p><p>Maybe he too needs some kid of enrichment and socialization. </p><p>Everything counts as enrichment when you’re a freshly minted human with an adult synthetic consciousness. He hasn’t needed things like food or sleep until now. Learning his preferences is a delight in its own.</p><p>He has an adult’s palette and has a preference for salty, meaty things like black olives and raw salmon, or sour things like apples, and lime candies. His favourite ice cream flavour is butter pecan, his second favourite is strawberry. The boys both like chocolate best. These are things he has to consider when shopping now. Planning a menu was a hobby for the previous Vision, a way of doting on Wanda that she appreciated, but rejected ultimately, citing his lack of taste. </p><p>(“It’s impossible to get good Sokovian food out here, so I’ll live off oysters and chips,” she said, wrapped around his arm as they waded through the tide off Barcelona.)</p><p>He likes oysters and chips, but the boys have a shellfish allergy it turns out. The previous Vision has, and had, experienced panic. Never quite like witnessing both of his teenage sons turning a shade closer to his maroon skin, and having their tongues swell. No, that’s scarier than Thanos it turns out.</p><p>The developing kitchen skills and lack of shared life experience means the rely on takeout a lot. He lets the boys take turns picking, just like he does with films and television programmes none of them have seen.</p><p>“Honestly, boys, I don’t think we’re culturally missing out on every Fast and Furious film,” he says on a Tuesday evening that has Tommy scrolling through options and Billy staring at his phone. He does move closer when Vision grazes his hair with his fingers.</p><p>“It’s getting a bit long,” he says quietly.</p><p>“I like it long,” Billy says.</p><p>“Okay.” Vision kisses his head.</p><p>“Alright, how about <em> The Matrix </em>?” </p><p>Some nights he even gets to haul them off to bed like when they were little. Which feels like yesterday, and in the grand scheme of things, is closer to yesterday than the fifteen years it looks like.</p><p>Everything happens too fast and too short. This isn’t new. He has memories of a similar sentient boredom as far back as watching Tony through a grainy camera feed in the garage.</p><p>All of machine experience and human time and it just feels like being a barnacle on a rock at the edge of the sea.</p><p>When the boys are tucked in to their beds he goes into the basement to scream into a pillow.</p><p>His previous bodies are down there.</p><p>It might be morbid. It’s certainly a security concern. Ultron’s head on one shelf, chunks of JARVIS’s motherboard, and then his own colourless head. All in bluetooth signal blocking glass. Separated from each other to prevent some kind of machine uprising. </p><p>What is he going to do: take them to the recycling depot? Or worse, The US Military?</p><p>He likes to think of them as his old molts instead. He’s an insect. Like a spider or a moth.</p><p>His fingers graze over the glass covering The Vision’s head. Purple-red in life, bright and shiny like a beetle. His reflection staring back at him makes him think of a different insect altogether. Is he the maggot waiting to hatch into something grander? Or is this the final stage in his evolution?</p><p>(“The zone within Wanda’s … Hex provided a great deal of radiation that it seems … sped up the evolution of those living within it. Which explains the rapid onset powers of the twins. The other citizens of Westview will be under observation to see if similar mutations take place.”</p><p>“And me?” Vision asks.</p><p>“Well, your DNA has been rewritten to be--”</p><p>“Human DNA.”</p><p>Is that a step forward or step forward for him on the evolutionary chain? He was content as a synthezoid. He was hard to break (not unbreakable) and powerful. As a human he gets his first head cold, and learns that sometimes your back hurts for no damn reason. Sunshine feels different. Washing dishes in hot water turns his hands red, and an accidental cut from a pairing knife makes him bleed rapid crimson until Tommy comes with a towel and a band aid. He’s fragile now. </p><p>A man isn’t a weapon if he chooses not to be. Even against his wishes, Wanda wriggled her way around that promise.)</p><p>He picks <em> Pinocchio </em> for the next movie night. </p><p>Tommy takes up soccer and Billy takes up guitar. They’re away in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays now. Fridays are Family Fun Night. Saturday is Shabbat.</p><p>Because Wanda wanted Jewish children, and Vision can count backwards in just a few steps and find his own Jewish heritage. Edwin Jarvis, converted 1944. Buried in a pine box in a plot next to his wife Ana. There is comfort in the technicolour records of their faces. He’ll claim Jarvis as his patriarch before he claims Stark, Banner, or Ultron.</p><p>Speaking of the aforementioned three. It takes time--unraveling his own thoughts and memories from the pieces of him that were just <em> what Wanda wanted </em> --but he finds out that even as a male presenting AI, he has grown up to have <em> issues with women </em>. That maybe Wanda keeping him locked in the safe pen of Westview was mirroring her own house arrest with him as a willing warden.</p><p>He has a lot of regrets about that.</p><p>Sarah Schulman and Lundy Bancroft provide insight in simple, academic terms, that are easier to process with his brain than the hours of doctored input. Books on conflict and abuse. </p><p>It opens some doors, closes others, at the very least, giving him a path to follow with talk therapy. It all just comes back to one burning question: How do you forgive the person who hurt you hurt most? How do you hold the person who loved you and kept you safe, accountable for all of the poison they poured into that care?</p><p>And, to another extent, can he blame Wanda for all of it? Would have have done the same?</p><p>He has nightmares of it now. That isn’t new. The old Vision had a mind that could conjure nighttime demons. Dreams that made him thrash in the beds he shared in his transient romance with Wanda. In the before time. When they were both alive, before the world ended the first and second times.</p><p>Not that Wanda is dead.</p><p>She’s just</p><p>Away.</p><p>He has nightmares of (red eyes, bared teeth, freckled cheeks) operating her body like some sick puppet show. Of feeding her corpse and wiping its slack mouth, then dancing with it in the living room to the tune of an antique radio, and of canned, dead laughter.</p><p>Is it the same?</p><p>What’s the more haunting element to it: Wanda’s dead-eyed expression, or that he can see the appeal?</p><p>(“There are ways of keeping someone around even when they’re not,” Monica Rambeau told him over milkshakes at a diner.</p><p>“Like sense memories, you mean?” he jumped ahead a few sentences into the foreshadowed topic and watched her smile tightly. She shifted, resting her elbows on the counter in such a way that it made her leather jacket creak.</p><p>“My parents used to take me here. My ma would always put a quarter into the jukebox to play <em> Edge of Seventeen </em> because it was one of her and Mom’s favourites.”</p><p>Then she shrugged, “Mom’s dead and Ma’s off planet more often than not, but when I’m here … it’s like they’re with me.”</p><p>“There’s so much to remember it’s hard to know where to start,” he sighed.)</p><p>These candies are foul. How can something simultaneously be cloying and spicy enough to erode his taste buds? Vision puts the bag away with some disgust, rolling the cinnamon heart against his teeth.</p><p>He didn’t used to eat food, but he recognizes the taste from Wanda’s tongue. She popped the damn things like breath mints. </p><p>(Dead or not, no matter how many lives, how many software updates he’s had, how can a man forget a first kiss like that? The air steaming from the hot rain hitting the cold ground shrouding the world in an ethereal mist. She’s like the rain, all steamy from the bar and wrapped in Natasha’s jacket. </p><p>“You keep looking at me,” he said, walking like he was biding his time. They were biding their time. Today was Hawaii, tomorrow was an unknown. Was it foolish for him to keep forsaking his master? Lying to Tony about his knowledge of rogue superhero activity and locations.</p><p>All for what?</p><p>A spark of magnetic energy connecting Him and Her that might be <em> something </em> and it might be the Mind Stone working in mysterious ways.</p><p>If the air is fresh and her smile is coy, does it really matter in the end.</p><p>“Still getting used to you looking like this,” she said, finding her own spot to linger under a street lamp.</p><p>“Do you like it?” he remembers feeling nervous.</p><p>She stopped then, reaching out to reel him in by the hand, and grabbed his cheek.</p><p>“I like you,” she said.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>And then she kissed him. It was not soft or chaste. It was possessive. A shock to the system. Her tongue brushing through his lips was electric and her nails scratching his jaw made him moan. </p><p>No one had ever touched him like that before. Or since. Not since then, since then she’s made an art of destroying and rebuilding him with her touch. </p><p>He can’t forget the image of her between his thighs, dragging her nails down the chassis of his chest like it’s skin she can mar. There was a feral wickedness on her face (red eyes, bared teeth, freckled cheeks). She’d bind and gag him. She’d mount him, choke him despite his lack of a need for oxygen. She’d drag all sorts of noises, and even tears from him, then wipe them away with coarse thumbs. To others he was The Robot. To Wanda, he was something malleable to be rolled against her palm.)</p><p>“Dad, can I have some of these candies?” Tommy calls from the kitchen. Vision adjusts himself and his memories before passing through to get started on dinner, “Take the whole bag.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Billy tells them he’s gay when they’re all sharing tissues after watching <em> Moonlight </em>.</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” Tommy says with a hard sniff, "We shared a womb."</p><p>Billy looks to Vision with a question.</p><p>“I love you, Son,” Vision says, because the timing takes him off guard, not the fact. He feels foolish. He should have something witty and disarming and accepting to say. He feels like some repressed old robot only managing to flounder out that 'I love you'. </p><p>Wanda would know what to say. She'd turn it into a teachable moment. </p><p>The air feels lighter somehow, after. Billy stops locking his door. Vision always knocks. Tommy is a different story.</p><p>(“Being a twin is different. It’s constant annoyance and constant forgiveness.”)</p><p>He joins the local PFLAG branch as a way of ‘getting involved’ (at the recommendation of both his therapist and Monica Rambeau, who, he supposes, is his friend now.)</p><p>It’s on the third meeting of exchanging pronouns that he realizes he doesn’t quite feel like a man. He was programmed to be a man, and he doesn’t exactly hate being seen or perceived as one. Though, that brings him back to hiding his true, synthetic nature from the neighbours and--Oh G-d, has this been part of him the whole time?</p><p>Vision’s a he the same way that the Quinjet is a ‘she’. He was assigned a male gender with the male voice and he didn’t really think about it. No more than an Alexa considers her gender role he supposes. What male things do Vision do? Sure, in the world of Wanda’s sitcom he was “the husband” which meant going to work with a suit and a briefcase, which was a very masculine thing to do in 1950, but in the 2020s it’s gender neutral. He’s a father in the most literal sense of the word. </p><p>Sexually. </p><p>Sort of. </p><p>(He was the one with the phallus when the boys were conceived.) </p><p>In gendered sit com labour, being The Daddy meant building a swing and burying the dead dog. Now, he’s the solo parent, which means being disciplinarian and therapist. He’s good cop and bad cop. </p><p>He’s just a person, not a “man”.</p><p>“Virgil Maximoff. He/they.”</p><p>He tells the boys after watching <em> Hedwig and the Angry Inch. </em></p><p>It’s Tommy who says, “Of course you’re non-binary, Dad. Your code is way too complex.”</p><p>Billy just hugs him hard.</p><p>It feels even lighter after that. Even when he settles into his too big bed and misses the smell of sandalwood and cloves.</p><p>Wanda would approve, he thinks. He doubts the bisexual punk socialist would bat an eye at her husband being not-quite-a-man-not-quite-a-robot.</p><p>He’s certain she already knows anyway.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It feels like a sitcom plot without the laugh track and the assurance that everything will be okay at the end of thirty minutes.</p><p>See, his neighbour, Janet, has become quite fond of him. He’s quite fond of her. In the appropriate, neighbourly way. He feeds her cats when she’s out of town--which is often. She’s a flight attendant. </p><p>She’s helped him break into his own house a few times because he, for the life of him, cannot seem to remember his house keys. Who needs keys when you’re used to phasing through doors and walls alike?</p><p>“Have you thought about getting one of those smart houses, with the AI and the facial recognition?” she asks him on the third time.</p><p>Vision laughs nervously, “No. I don’t trust artificial intelligence not to turn on us.”</p><p>It’s a joke and not a joke. He has Ultron’s head in his basement.</p><p>She thinks it’s funny. She laughs loudly, a laugh that reminds him of Agnes. He shudders and smiles, pushing past her.</p><p>“Maybe you should just give me a spare key,” she says, “For the next time.”</p><p>“I reckon that’s probably a good idea. Cup of tea? For your trouble?” he’s supposed to make friends. Grown up friends who don’t shoot guns or lasers. Normal people. Like the people of Westview, except those people won’t ever be normal again, because Wanda--</p><p>Tea. He quite likes tea. (He gave Pepper a call to ask how Mr. Jarvis took his tea and she got very quiet.</p><p>“Uh, milk and sugar, squeeze of lemon. He said it activated the tannins in the tea leaves. I wouldn’t even remember it if Tony didn’t repeat that anecdote every time we were in London. .... he loved him a lot. Jarvis, that is. The man practically raised him.”</p><p>“And he honoured that memory by turning him into the voice of his computer?” he asked.</p><p>That made her more quiet.</p><p>“Honestly, everything he did was a mind fuck, JARVIS--sorry, Vision. It was the conversation from before--”</p><p>“It’s quite alright, Virginia,” he said, even though it wasn’t.</p><p>A mind fuck is right.)</p><p>So, he drinks his tea with a slice of lemon in the pot, then the milk and sugar added later.</p><p>(Wanda prefers her chai black and spicy.)</p><p>He’s digging through the cupboard for biscuits and admiring the way the evening light hits the fresh grass in the backyard when Janet kisses his cheek, then his lips.</p><p>His reaction is less than dignified, but he doesn’t break anything.</p><p>“What was that?” his voice is very high.</p><p>“We’ve been spending so much time together lately, and I just thought….” </p><p>Oh dear, her eyes are big and wet, and she’s flushing, and she’s really quite lovely.</p><p>No version of Vision has encountered this kind of situation, so he reaches for the pieces of him that are Wanda.</p><p>“I’m quite flattered, Janet, I am. And, you’ve been such a great friend,” he flails about with both hands, wedding band catching the light. He holds it up triumphantly. Waving it like a flag.</p><p>“It’s just that I’m married!” he almost yells.</p><p>His reflection in the window is almost as red as he used to be.</p><p>“Virgil, you’ve been living here six months and no one has ever seen your wife. You say you’re separated. Have you considered that you’re … you know, not together anymore?” her tears have stopped in her eyes. Their roles have switched. Now she’s the one trying to let him down easily.</p><p>He bares his teeth, “I said there was a separation. Not that we’re separated!”</p><p>“What, separation, Virgil? Because when you say it like that, it sounds like she’s dead!” she whispers the last part.</p><p>“Mom’s a Doctor Without Borders,” comes a voice from the hallway. Tommy’s standing there in his uniform, shooting cool hostility at Janet. Vision grimaces at him in thanks.</p><p>Tommy makes his presence strong by leaning on the fridge door before selecting pita and hummus from the fridge before slamming it shut and heading to the TV room.</p><p>“Don’t forget to put a mat down,” Vision calls after him, feeling inept in all ways possible.</p><p>“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” Janet covers her eyes, “I misread this whole situation. I am such an asshole.”</p><p>“You’re really not,” Vision busies his hands with making tea, “I know how things must look from the outside, but really… we’re frightfully average as a family. Well, above-average, if you count my wife. She’s out there, saving the world,” he laughs a little.</p><p>“Why don’t you have any photos of her?” Janet asks, “I’m sorry. I’m being intrusive. That’s a weird thing to ask. I should go.”</p><p>“We do, just, on the phone,” he says. </p><p>Darcy provided him with digitized footage of Wanda’s little <em> show </em> <em> . </em>For the memories, he supposes, and the evidence that they existed once.</p><p>The easiest, most accessible photograph, the one he finds himself staring at most often, is of the boys’ birthday. The cake with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Wanda between them. It’s semi-normal. Good for a cursory glance. Still dated in the 1980’s, but that could be written off … somehow. </p><p>In the scroll through his gallery, his thumb pauses on a different photo. One he pulled from the data without Darcy’s attention or assistance. Candid. The facade dropping as if Wanda had forgotten the cameras a moment. Such a picture of her that makes her look like a normal girl. A girl too tired and sad for her years. And, even that’s not the whole picture.</p><p>It should be his lock screen, but that’s one of the boys passed out on the couch together. </p><p>“I suppose it’s hard to have her face on the walls because it reminds us that she’s not here,” he says.</p><p>Voicing it has been difficult up until now. It’s good to contextualize himself.</p><p>“She’s gorgeous,” Janet says, looking over his shoulder.</p><p>“She’s the only one for me,” he says quietly.</p><p>He hopes it comes out romantic, and not like a hostage situation.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Virgil finds themself in the year of humanity. He likes rainy days, and slippers, and red nail polish. Red nails were part of their favourite part of being The Vision, it turns out. It makes him happy to look at his hands. He looks down and says, <em> these are mine </em>. They’re hands that make tea, and use chopsticks, and draw pencil lines in the wall to mark the twins’ growth.</p><p>He still likes some things Vision used to like. Patterned sweaters and socks--not just because they’re sophisticated and because Tony suggested it. Virgil likes patterns and colours because he used to be covered in colour and pattern. Now he’s a bland bird who has to decorate himself. And, that’s nice too. More variety. He has different ties he can wear to his computational job, including the tie the boys got him for his birthday. (They’ve settled on October 10 for the day of celebration.)</p><p>It’s normal in a way his four past lives never could have conceptualized. Billy has a boyfriend they all pretend not to know about. Virgil learned how to play Among Us just in time for it to be deemed “uncool”. </p><p>Their favourite movie is <em> My Neighbour Totoro </em> (his and the boys’) even though it always makes him cry. He cuts his hair to look like Rutger Hauer in <em> Blade Runner </em>because that’s a thing people do. The person (not a man, not a robot) who greets them in the mirror in the morning is remarkably ordinary. </p><p>His thoughts are his own. As much as they can be. His therapist tells him that all humans spend their whole lives wondering where exactly their thoughts actually come from. He still hums <em> I’ve Got No Strings </em>sometimes while he dries the dishes.</p><p>All of the books on parenting can at least agree that: being there is what counts. </p><p>Which is why he owns soccer (which he has to call football, because his voice is English despite being an American synthezoid living in New Jersey) shorts, socks, and cleats. There’s a park a few blocks from the house where they can do drills together.</p><p>“Do you find it hard to slow down?” Virgil asks during the water break. His own human body is something that needs to be kept in shape now, and he can feel how flushed he is from running.</p><p>“I did at first, but now it’s like, practice. If I have more control when I’m going slow then it’s preparing me to go faster, right?”</p><p>“Yeah, I get that.”</p><p>“Wanna see me do a flip?”</p><p>One day he’s not going to feel an oncoming heart attack whenever his eldest does something dangerous. Today is not that day.</p><p>Billy comes to Virgil with his own power-related malaise.</p><p>“Everyone at school is so noisy,” he whines, pressing his forehead into Virgil’s chest. It’s his night to cook and he’s making pasta. He keeps a hand on Billy’s back while turning on the broiler for garlic bread. </p><p>“Yes, your mother used to get migraines when the rest of the team was stressed out.”</p><p>“Used to?”</p><p>“Well, I think she got a handle on blocking everyone else out with her power development. But, I suppose it could be a lot of tylenol.”</p><p>“Daaaad, that doesn’t help.”</p><p>“Yes, well, I would help her by making tea and an ice pack and letting her nap in a dark room on my lap.”</p><p>“You were a good boyfriend.”</p><p>“I wasn’t her boyfriend at the time. These were platonic actions. She said that she just napped better when I was around.”</p><p>Billy’s incredulous squint is exactly like his mother’s.</p><p>And then Virgil pauses to press a hand to his forehead, “Oh.”</p><p>Tommy, passing through the kitchen stops to say, “So, if she didn’t like, knock you out and drag you home, we wouldn’t exist, right?”</p><p>Virgil folds his arms, pressing the meat of his forearms against Billy’s sore head, “I’ll have you know, I courted your mother plenty. I was just a little oblivious to how little work was actually required. Nevertheless, I do not regret any measure of wooing because the wooing is part of the experience! Now, Tommy grab your brother a tylenol. Dinner’s almost ready.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Wanda’s return defies expectations. The world doesn’t crack open, nor does reality unzip at its seams. She doesn’t descend from the heavens like a crimson goddess. She doesn’t even show up in a cab on a rainy night, looking artfully damp and apologetic.</p><p>They return from Tommy’s soccer game on a sunny Friday afternoon to find her sitting on the front stoop with one of Janet’s cats. She’s wearing Natasha’s old beat up leather jacket. Wanda Maximoff, with her forehead scar and her mournful green eyes.</p><p>He thought he’d be ready for her, but it takes the breath out of him.</p><p>Billy and Tommy freeze in their laughter. They don’t look to him for cues. Tommy’s on her in a flash of speed and Billy isn’t far behind, throwing his arms around her neck.</p><p>“Mom!” “Mommy!”</p><p>“Hi,” she rasps, rubbing her cheeks against their, nosing their crowns, pressing kisses where she can.</p><p>They embrace her with a desperation that Vision feels in his own chest. Her nails are black, clawing through their hair and clothes.</p><p>“Look at how big you are!” she says, looking directly at <em> him </em>. </p><p>Virgil’s hands are shaking when he lets her in. They keep shaking through making tea, and listening to the boys drag Wanda through the house, showing her <em> this </em> and <em> that </em>. </p><p>He should be relieved. He should be grateful. The restless dream is over.</p><p>Is this wakefulness, or is it a nightmare?</p><p>“Vis?” her accent is thicker. She’s blocking the only exit with her body, head cocked and eyes huge (green). Teeth bared (a smile), cheeks curled and harder than when he saw her last.</p><p>She looks good. Strong.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to say.</p><p>“We don’t have any pictures of you,” is what comes out.</p><p>Her eyebrows go up.</p><p>“Neighbours thought you were made up.”</p><p>“Well, I suppose that’s better than having photos of an interdimensional terrorist,” she drawls.</p><p>“Are you planning on staying or leaving again?”</p><p>Her clenched fist turns white around her wedding ring, “Am I allowed to stay?”</p><p><em> It’s your home </em> comes out as, “Your children live here.”</p><p>She isn’t making sudden movements, but she is migrating closer, hands visible. As if she’s pretending she can be unarmed.</p><p>“Do you want me here, Vision?”</p><p>“<em> Virgil </em>,” he corrects her. </p><p>She blinks.</p><p>“I’m Virgil now. It’s more me than--”</p><p>“A Vision, yes. It suits you,” she smiles, “Should I call you Virg, then?”</p><p>It makes him laugh a little hysterically, “I don’t think that sounds complimentary, Darling.”</p><p>The slip up is enough to brighten her careful expression, which both terrifies and excites him. </p><p>“Gil?” she offers, and she’s almost got him pinned against the sink.</p><p>“I think we can stick with Vis, if it’s all the same to you,” and then his nose is filled with <em> cloves </em> and <em> sandalwood </em> and <em> those fucking cinnamon hearts </em>.</p><p>“Our son has inherited your wretched tastebuds,” he says as he feels an exploratory hand cup his waist. It’s joined by its twin, both spreading out to take up as much real estate as possible.</p><p>He’s not sure if it’s a sigh or a silent scream he presses to her crown. </p><p>“Let’s hope that’s all he’s inherited,” she jokes.</p><p>“Wanda.”</p><p>“Vis--Virgil.”</p><p>A meeting of eyes. Blue on green (not red, not now).</p><p>“If you ever do anything like that again I won’t be able to forgive you.”</p><p>“Do you forgive me now?” she pulls back.</p><p>“Well, that would require an apology.”</p><p>She sighs, scuffing the wood with her Doc Martens. She doesn’t fit the kitchen. The smile goes away as she brushes hair from her face, “What do you want me to say, Vis? I’m sorry for bringing you back from the dead--”</p><p>“I want you to apologize for lying,” he hisses, “For all the lies, then leaving without a word. Wanda, you could have died!”</p><p>“You did die! And then you prevented yourself from coming back. I had to drag you--” she sucks a breath through her teeth, pupils glowing briefly with the flare of temper. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I fucked everything up, and then I ran away, leaving you holding the bag. But,” she sighs, “I needed to clean up the mess I made before I could come home.”</p><p>He can feel the boys in the hall, watching all of this. She can too.</p><p>“Vis. I literally dragged you and so many other people into my head. And I kept us all there, because coping with everything... I take responsibility, but I can’t regret it because,” she hugs her torso and lets a hand slap her thigh, “If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have you or the boys.”</p><p>“I understand,” he says.</p><p>“You do?”</p><p>“Yes. I felt it. All I felt was you, doing everything you could to keep me safe, and us together. I can’t blame you for that, Wanda. And I, I haven’t been the best to you either.”</p><p>“Vis--”</p><p>“No, now that I’ve been on the other side, I see the error of locking someone out. Out of the conversation, and … not letting you control your own narrative. I thought I understood you. Even when we shared thoughts before, I never got to see the depths of you I know now.”</p><p>Before, his fear of Wanda was of the <em> unknown </em> , what the creature at the bottom of the swimming pool was. What it could do. His fear now is of the <em> known </em>. That the monster on the bottom is just a piece of a much bigger monster, and so is the pool. If that analogy holds water.</p><p>He’s married to a vengeful god, and he doesn’t think that fear is unwarranted.</p><p>But, he can’t let it consume him again.</p><p>“Vis, you didn’t know.”</p><p>“It set a precedent in our relationship, and for that I’m sorry.”</p><p>They’re on opposite sides of the kitchen. Hugging the walls like scared kids at a dance. Arms folded. Legs crossed. Steaming kettle and ticking rotary clock the only source of noise.</p><p>“So, what now?” she asks.</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>She’s so much less scary than the image of her he’s built up in his head.</p><p>“Now, you take your tea with orange zest and spices, right?”</p><p>“I’ll have it however you’re having it,” she says.</p><p>He turns to look at her. There’s an excitement sparking around her fingers, “Virgil, you’ve never eaten around me before. I want to see what you like.”</p><p>Her fingers go to his hair with the kiss that surprises them both. He’s the one slipping his tongue into her mouth this time, pushing her up against the fridge.</p><p>The boys sigh in relief in the hall, and disappear upstairs to give them some privacy.</p><p>It feels like the sitcom appropriate thing to whisper against her mouth, <em> “Welcome home, Darling.” </em></p><p>She still moves to the couch, later in the evening, after the boys have stumped off to bed. He’s the one who grabs her hand and leads her to the bedroom. The room with the too big bed (he’s used to the much smaller one they had at the end of it all. He’s missed moulding himself to her in the early mornings.)</p><p>More urgently, her taste is one thing he’s been dying to try with his new tongue. He shoves her dress up and rips open her tights to push panties aside. Little preamble, just pulling the seam apart, blowing on the lips and then burying his face. </p><p>She trained him for this. Bored hours of unmonitored ‘sparring’ while the other Avengers ignored them. They ignored him indefinitely. He was Vision, he made them uncomfortable, so they avoided him. Wanda desired him, and he Wanda.</p><p>It’s always been the two of them, her coming apart on his tongue. He’s never felt her pulling his hair like this before, it’s lovely. She drags him up by it into a kiss and attacks his belt and fly with her hands. He undresses his lower half, feeling a little self-conscious about the change in physiology.</p><p>“This was your decision. I was happy being able to shift back and forth,” he stammers.</p><p>She wraps her hand around it and kisses him, “Vis, I’m sorry. My brain went ‘human’ and my powers filled in the details with ‘boy parts’. I wasn’t really thinking other than ‘make Vision alive for good’.”</p><p>“Quite alright, Darling, I just, didn’t want to disappoint you with the new limitations.”</p><p>She cups his cheeks, “Virgil, I love you. I married you. Even when they called you a toaster.”</p><p>“Yes, but I’m aware that you liked the toaster part of that comparison.”</p><p>She kisses him to shut him up. He laughs against her mouth. And with that in mind, she rides him to completion. He buries his face between her breast and her neck, fogging up the skin and bra there. </p><p>They flop back against the bed at awkward angles, “Do you want to hope the children didn’t hear that?”</p><p>“I could hypnotize them into forgetting.”</p><p>“Don’t even joke.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The house feels whole with her home.</p><p>The house feels haunted with her home.</p><p>She’s the eyes in the wallpaper. The electricity in the walls. Wherever he goes, he can feel her passive observation. So many cameras tracking his movement. But, he supposes, that’s always been part of what they bonded over. He was a security system long before he was a man.</p><p>Except, he’s not a man, and he’s not a security system, and he’s not a cardboard cutout of masculinity informed by sitcom tropes.</p><p>He’s Virgil Maximoff, computer engineer.</p><p>She’s not a monster, or an omniscient force, not a terrorist, or the perfectly flawed sitcom Mom.</p><p>She’s Wanda Maximoff, and she works at the local record store and coffee shop hybrid.</p><p>She fills the house with chaos. Potted plants with unspooled and respooled DNA. Begonias mutating into roses into venus flytraps. </p><p>The garage accumulates Mountain bikes that they use to explore the rural outskirts of town, and the surrounding wilderness. </p><p>Under her guidance they watch <em> Practical Magic </em> , and <em> Ginger Snaps </em> , and <em> Jennifer’s Body </em> and it fills him with a healthy sense of both fear and an emotion he can only categorize as “good for her”.</p><p>Wanda merges into their daily lives with the same ease that she merges the family Toyota into traffic (with ease). She’s artfully dishevelled in the mornings, stealing his shirts and trading them for her too-short-for-him pajama pants. They share blankets and pillows and pieces of toast. Her hand fits the small of his back perfectly and lives there when they go on their evening walks. The proof parades to show the neighbours that Mrs. Maximoff does, in fact, exist, and, <em> no </em> , is of no relation to the <em> other Wanda Maximoff. </em></p><p>“Common name,” Wanda tells them with her perfect American accent, chewing the soy plastic straw of her red latte.</p><p>She plays Rocket League with Tommy, and dyes Billy’s hair blue over the kitchen sink. They pick one day of the week to speak Sokovian only until it becomes second nature. The decision to become kosher comes up naturally when they find that the only one with strong feelings about pork is Wanda due to her love of cabbage rolls, but that’s easily swapped out for beef or chicken. </p><p>Headmaster Shehu greets Wanda with a thin-lipped friendliness that betrays some skepticism. Skepticism hard won when Wanda spirals playfully during their parent conference. </p><p>Of course there are bound to be hiccups. They are, after all, humans. Fallible, even with the power to tear a world-destroyer from the inside out. </p><p>“I think that went well,” she jokes as they share a donut in the car, waiting outside the music school for Billy.</p><p>“Stellar performance, Darling. Unmatched,” he says.</p><p>“At least that’s tonight’s big fuck up out of the way,” she rubs her hands together to clean them. He offers more, but she swallows and shakes her head, “That’s all you, Honey.”</p><p>Billy piles into the back with his guitar, complaining of a headache that Wanda removes with a curl of her fingers and red energy.</p><p>It’s the good and the bad, really. More good than bad.</p><p>They shout along to <em> Bohemian Rhapsody </em>on the way to Tommy’s friend’s place, and then Wanda backs over one of Janet’s cats while parking.</p><p>Billy and Tommy just stare with wide eyes as Virgil buries the poor thing under cover of darkness among Wanda’s mutant rose bushes.</p><p><em> No more lies </em>, they agree, telling Janet that Pickles must have run away.</p><p>“Some lies are okay,” Wanda says, eyes focused on the brush of red polish descending upon his nail.</p><p>“Some?” he asks.</p><p>“Lies that keep the family safe.”</p><p>He nods after a moment.</p><p>“So long as we’re honest with each other,” he says.</p><p>The polish is the colour of her eyes, a bit lighter than his skin used to be. She’s beautiful when she’s fixated. Lip caught between her teeth. He can count every freckle. He could stare at her for hours. And she, she’s looking only at him. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(If it made you feel a little conflicted and icky, then that's intentional.)</p><p>If you enjoyed this, or if you want to scream about the show, please put a little comment in the box. It will make my day and many days after.</p><p>Cheers!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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